The night I was rejected, they thought I was broken, but the rejection freed me. The girl who spent her life bearing the shame of being a “defective,” wolfless wolf. The girl who stood in that stone circle, shaking and humiliated while three hundred wolves watched her fail to shift? She's gone. When a deadly curse forces her back to the Ashwood Pack, she isn’t looking for acceptance—she’s looking for a reckoning. To save innocent lives. What came back is something they exiled into the lethal forbidden woods. Something they sealed eighteen years ago because of fear. They knew what would happen if I ever lived in the pack. My family kept me caged my entire life. My mate rejected me. My pack cast me out. What happens when the girl they feared now returns to the pack?

Marie inherited more than just her father's restaurant—she inherited a legacy she doesn't even know exists. When Love Kitchen begins draining excess money due to ruthless competition, she has nowhere left to turn except to Silas Thorne, the arrogant billionaire playboy who looks at her like she's dessert. His offer? Become his fake girlfriend to clean up his reputation, and he'll save her business. His real agenda? Destroy everything her father built. But Silas didn't count on three things: his brother falling for Marie, Marie challenging everything he thought he knew about love, and the dark secret connecting their families—a secret that could destroy them both. In a world of corporate warfare and family vendettas, can Marie and Silas find real love in a contract built on lies?